Empire Earth
by internet weaver
Summary: The Galactic Empire stumbles across Earth, and attempts to bring it into the fold. Earth finds itself embroiled in the middle of intergalactic politics, and on the warpath. Set during Battle of Endor. Warning: Sex, drug use, infidelity, politics, violence, etc.,
1. Chapter 1

Empire: Earth.

The Rebel Planet.

_It is Saturday. I was supposed to take Elise to the park after soccer. I should call her, tell her I can't make it._ Ben Campbell thought to himself. He was propped up against a file cabinet, on the 35th floor of his office. He was looking out, onto the city below. How often had he wished he would have the guts to stand up to his boss? He could be out right now, getting ice cream with his daughter. But every time he'd sat at his desk, knowing that his boss would ask him to come in on a weekend, fear had held his tongue. It wasn't a personal fear, though, that kept him from doing it. Was standing up to his boss important enough to risk losing his job over? Coming home and explaining why he couldn't pay her fees so she could play peewee soccer? No, it was all for his daughter's well-being. All those lost weekends, for her.

_Choices. We all make them. And now, they all seem so utterly inconsequential. _Ben was always capable of deeper and reflective thought. If you had asked his co-workers, they'd never have guessed, though. His appearance, one of a balding head, overhang of a gut, and business casual appearance never lent itself towards the image that one conjured when the word 'intellectual' came up. Now, with half the office vaporized, every window in the office shattered, office papers fluttering past him and down into the raging hot air as the wind ripped papers from copiers and desks, nobody would have cared, if there was anyone to tell.

Ben coughed once. Blood now mixed in with the coffee stains on his shirt to make a modern art statement about... something. His arm lay crooked by his side. Explosions rocked the building, making it sway, as though there was an earthquake. The city scape of San Diego was on fire. Everything had caught fire at once, after a massive explosion had rocked the office. Everything was burning. Lawns, trees, hills, parks, forests, patches of nature, golf courses, all of it quite literally up in flames in moments. Deep in his mind, he hoped against all reality that his daughter had survived. But the epicenter of one of the craters was the city block he lived on. There was no chance.

As Ben lay on his office floor, dying, he thought of his daughter. All the time he'd spent fighting for her future, and yet he barely knew her. Life could be so unfair.


	2. Chapter 2

Empire Earth, Chapter 2:

Thomas Haden was one of _those_ people. Who exactly one of _those_ people he was depended on the one describing. He was a D.C. cyclist who flaunted right of way. He smacked when he chewed meat. He smoked cigarettes, and drank. Single, urban professional, though no longer young. He was tall, white, with a slender frame of shoulders and close cropped dark hair that he liked to imagine accented his dollar-bill green eyes, so he dyed it every morning. He wore a cheap suit every day to his desk job, carefully draping his knockoff brand jacket over his chair like it were the genuine article.

Appearances were everything to Thomas Haden. He knew that his lifestyle was offensive to some people, but in his line of work, he knew full well that there was no such thing as pleasing everyone, and that nothing was private. Best to flaunt your desires and wants to those whose opinions mattered little to not at all, rather than to try in vain to hide them. In the end, he knew that no matter what you did, there was a record of it. And his job was to analyze all that data on people. To conspiracy theorists and privacy nuts, reading Thomas Haden's biography would confirm their worst fears.

The man dealt in secrets. He had started dealing in them almost two decades ago ago, displaying to his computer-illiterate superiors at the time that _knowing_ _things about people _should be the business of Intelligence in the digital age. He kept track of every little secret when it came to profiling people of interest to the United States Government. Tracking financial records to establish if someone ate meat, rode a bicycle or drove a car to work. He could use the DMV's records to track what kind of car it was, and the toll booth cameras to know where and when that car went to places of interest. He could access digitized confidential medical logs to see notes written by any psychologists or doctors' notes about the person's health. So that became his job, and as digitization crept into daily life, it became more and more effective at keeping tabs on people. Soon, it wasn't just him doing this, he was placed in charge of an entire branch. And like a tree, that branch grew and grew, with him at the base of it, with Thomas Haden at its core. When it came to providing useful information on people, to those who that kept the gears turning inside the beltway, Thomas Haden was the man to go to.

To some people, this sort of program violated constitutional amendments. To some of those people, he was helping steer a democracy towards a dictatorship, or like a secret police. What had started as tracking criminals became tracking suspected criminals, to now frequent requests to track political opponents or nominees to powerful positions in the government. So, to Thomas Haden, it had become a Pandora's box. He'd opened it, and he highly doubted that his quitting his post would mean anything more than a slightly younger assistant taking the position. Sure, he could have quit earlier, before the program took off. Sabotaged his efforts deliberately, made it look impossible. But that would mean living most of the rest of his life on a shoestring budget in the worst part of Washington D.C., unable to even afford to fuel his alcoholism. At least, that's what he told himself to sleep at night. It didn't matter whether or not he believed it. So to say that he hated his job was an understatement; the irony of it was that he'd invented the position in the first place. The irony of his being unable to see a psychiatrist about this was that the confidential medical notes on his computer were practically open to the public, thanks largely to him. So the bottle became his confidant.

A day like today, however, made him realize that for all the state secrets he had access to, for all the power he had to keep eyes and ears on any person in Washington (or the world, if he so pleased), and however many operations he managed (of which the public knew nothing about), in the end it meant absolutely nothing. Who cared what a diplomat got up to at night, if a giant meteor could just level your hometown of San Diego in an instant, with no warning? It all seemed to pointless, now.

Mutely, he'd walked out of his office, mumbling about a smoke break. The bar he'd biked to was his favorite. It was a seedy dive, populated by the near worst kind of lowlife scum this side of the city of D.C. It was the absence of cameras, however, that made it an appealing destination to Thomas. That and the mannerisms of 'Crankshaft' Cornelius, who manned the bar and knew to never answer any question that was put to him. Thomas bet that Crankshaft would not even answer where the bathroom was. And that made it one of the few safe places to get a drink in D.C. Privately, Thomas wondered if Cornelius ever slept. The man had a generally unpleasant demeanor to him- shaved head, one eye perpetually squinting with a scar running down from the forehead to the cheekbone made his face appear as a constant grimace. That he towered over any patron who had stumbled in there also discouraged trouble or loose lips. Most patrons kept to themselves, hunched over their drink. Thomas liked to think of Locust Bar as one of the few places left in the local area that even he could not trace the going-ons of.

Thomas took a beer and slammed it back, drinking in the bitter warmth in until his head spun, whether from the shock, the act of tilting his head back, or the actual alcohol, he neither knew nor cared. All of it, gone. Cousins, neighbors, memories, up in smoke. _We were all so focused on ourselves that we never saw the greater danger._A pang of regret that he'd taken as large a slice of funding as he had- maybe some could have gone to NASA.

Cornelius whistled loudly as he put down another of Thomas's usual brew on the bar in front of him, and the bar quieted. The enormous bartender turned the volume on the olden-style box TV volume knob, and the clicking noise of cameras as the President strode up to the podium. He looked stern, as ever. Thomas sat forward in his chair, putting his elbows on the wooden bar and took.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," President Wilson began. "It sorrows me greatly to announce that a tragedy of epic proportions has struck this nation. Our great city of San Diego is no more. We believe that at Three o'clock, a natural disaster of sorts devastated the city. I ask everyone to take some time from what they are doing and to pray for the survival of those who are still alive in the city, and that the recovery teams digging through the rubble are able to reach them in time. We stand united. For every person fleeing the surrounding city, we have seen an outpouring of relief efforts towards the city, and for that we are blessed to share this nation with one another. While we look inwards and further into the potential cause of this devastation, we-"

Then, a man in a suit, and a narrow tie stepped into the feed. He made a gesture to the cameras, put an arm on the President's shoulder, and whispered into his ear. The President began to move with the man in the tie, and the feed ended abruptly, cutting to the newsroom- the broadcast, however, did not last long on the various anchors', faces, as it cut right back to the President's feed. He was being led to Marine One.

The feed had gone away from the talking heads who would spend the next hour analyzing what the President said, didn't say, and what it might or might not mean with the same level of accuracy as a middle school English teacher trying to find deeper meaning in a work of literature they barely understood.

Thomas looked away from the TV. Nobody was looking at the screen anymore- they were looking at one another for reassurance, and weren't finding it. Businessmen, hardened bikers, soccer moms, everyone of different backgrounds packed into the bar. He put on a vague smile that he hoped would send some comfort to those around him, but inside the gears in his head were turning quickly. Actually _working_ for the government had its benefits, sure, but if members of the government were going to ground or heading for safety, then perhaps he should curtail his lunch break and head in to his desk. Or get out of Dodge.

A few gasps went around the bar. fixated on the TV at once. Thomas craned his head back towards the TV to see what the commotion was. The scene was back away from the anchors, and aimed at an incoming object in the sky. Focus went in and out as the cameraman tried to adjust their settings. "This is insane," the man sitting at his elbow said. "You think it's a jet?"

It wasn't.

He knew what jet fighters looked like, and how they moved, and the angle of approach was too steep. It wasn't a helicopter, either, the approach was far too fast.

The camera zoomed in and found its focus on the flying object.

It was not a shape that should have been able to fly- the shape was geometrically off-kilter and would have been impossible to land. The wings were too low to support landing gear. It moved gracefully and without noise, yet within a dozen seconds it had gone from somewhat visible to a landing approach. A mechanical hum began to emit from the TV. It was unimaginably nimble, coming in for a perfect VTOL landing before hovering forwards at a few miles per hour. The chinook, rotors still warming up, was still stationary on the ground. Landing gear emerged from the belly of the unknown craft. It was _enormous_, easily twice the size of the Chinook in width, and more than twice as tall, though most of this was wingspan.

The craft's wings folded upwards, and a ramp descended from its center, right behind what appeared to be the control deck. A dozen men clad in white shining armor exited, followed by a man wearing a cloth uniform and what appeared to be a rank of sort stitched to his chest stepped in front of them. He made his way across the perfectly manicured lawn towards the Chinook. Several men stood in his way, guns drawn and aimed at his chest. The camera shook, aimed at the men in white armor and back at the Secret Service agents. The doors to the helicopter remained closed for a moment, before opening. The man in the buzz cut and glasses had a gun stood in the doorway, a pistol pointed at the uniformed man from behind the phalanx of other agents.

Words were exchanged back and forth, impossible to tell what was said, but a hand was gently placed on the man in the helicopter's arm and the secret service agent moved slightly to the side. The President stepped from behind him, stretched to his full height, and offered his hand to the visitor. The unknown visitor took it and they shook. The President gestured to the inside the helicopter, and the man entered, the President following, before waving to the cameras. The helicopter's engines increased in whine and it lifted.

The strange craft took the men in white armor back on board, and it lifted to follow the Chinook.

Thomas looked around. This was crazy. This was nuts. This was really happening, right? Not just a film? The bartender wasn't pulling a prank, the bar was full at 3:00. Cornelius was as affixed to the TV as everyone else. It wasn't April 1. This wasn't a reality TV show. The special effects were beyond Reality TV's budget. No, it didn't make sense. None of this made any sense. The warm summer air wasn't what was making him sweat, it was the oddity, the absurdity of the situation. An American city, leveled in an instant? Unknown visitors with unheard of military uniforms, using technology capable of entering White House airspace unmolested? If it weren't for the man who had shaken hands with the President, he'd have guessed _alien_. Maybe it was.

As is, he was now betting that maybe Area 51 and that maybe the classified clearance he had didn't even begin to scratch the surface of what _really_ went on at Area 51. The thought troubled Thomas so much that he walked out of the bar without remembering to pay. Cornelius was so preoccupied with theories that he didn't notice, either.

As he mounted up, he began to collect his thoughts in his semi-sober mind.

_Who had this sort of technology?_

All he knew was that the game had changed. And he wanted answers.


	3. Chapter 3

Empire Earth Chapter 3.

Hi all. Sorry about the gaps. I update when I'm on summer breaks and unemployed. As you may guess, this means that I recently quit my job. Guess I'm back to writing for now!

Up until this morning, the toughest part of President Harker's job was getting Congress to approve a funding prioritization that emphasized spending on jobs programs, scientific funding, funded by his proposed budget cuts to the military. He'd been panned by the media as "out of touch" with his party base.

And now, with a man sitting across from him in Air Force One, the President realized that it was all so trivial. Contact with extraterrestrial beings. Was there ever any president better suited or prepared? _Well, maybe Nixon_, the President joked inwardly _but only because Nixon wasn't really much of a human being, more of a monster bred of the cesspool called 'politics_.'

The man sitting across from him was caucasian in appearance, about 35 years of age if the President had to guess. He had a very trimmed appearance to him, definitely military. His eyes were sharp and focused, as was his general demeanor, looking the world as though it was him who wanted to ask Harker all the questions. Harker, afraid that the man sitting across from him would depart as soon and as quickly as he had arrived, was determined to get as much information as possible, by asking as many questions as possible.

"One more time for me here, you say you are an alien? In the extraterrestrial sense of the word?" He asked, toning down the incredulous tone that fought to rise up in him. It was best he didn't come across as a simpleton from a backwater planet, even if that was what Earth was to these people. An interplanetary government would probably prefer to deal with a singular government, one managed by someone such as the man sitting across from him; calm and professional, rather than a good-'ol-country-boy-come-president, as his campaign staff had carefully tailored his image to reflect.

"Yes. I am acting representative of our government, the Galactic Empire. We are here on an exploratory mission," he said in a clipped tone. It almost sounded like a British accent, if British accents were naturally condescending.

"We didn't expect extraterrestrials to be human," President Harker commented; to him, this was the most important question to ask.

"Not all of life outside of earth is, you know."

"Aren't all what?" The President asked, leaning forward, eyebrows furrowed. He knew he had asked the right question then. He dearly wanted to sit this man down for a few hours, maybe even a few days, and have a chat, but the pressures of his office meant he had precious little time before relaying whatever he learned to the American people.

"All human. I'd say less than half the known galaxy is populated by humans, but they are still the spacefaring largest minority. We didn't expect to find intelligent life this far out of the core, let alone _human_ life."

"Oh." Everything about this _was_ unexpected, then. At least they were both caught flat-footed by one another. It gave him a little more to relax about. Earth could not appear too backwards, hopefully.

"Yes. We have a lot to talk about, but let's get back to the topic at hand. We noticed a very large meteor on a collision course with your planet. We had hoped to send warning, and to send for a capital ship, but we were too late."

"Yes, the meteor hit Earth this morning. We weren't sure that that's what it was, but with your confirmation-"

"Was there any damage?" The officer's tone was flat, neutral, almost guarded as he interrupted.

"It leveled out one of our nation's largest cities. The death toll is expected to be at least a million."

The Officer paused. "That's very unfortunate. The-" He paused. His gaze then re-fixated on the President, _very_ sternly. "Million?" He asked.

"Yes," The President said. "We do not have an actual body count, of course, but it's expected to."

"How populous is your world, by your estimate?"

"Over seven billion, but in our nation-"

"And do you not have space travel or craft capable of defeating it? Or capable of any long-range detection of objects? Did your planet's governing body not determine it to be a threat?" The man seemed surprised.

"If you really want that question answered as much as I do, you'll join me in my office as we brief the head of NASA. I got a quick run down on the phone before giving my press conference," Harker said "before you landed and that was interrupted. I imagine the United States must be rather worried at the moment, but if you were to join me, I would be _very_ appreciative. And so would my friend here," Harker motioned to the Secret Service agent who was in the chopper with him; "he would very much prefer having to only look out for one of us. Would you be so kind?"

The ambassador smiled a mirthless smile. "Of course. I sense we have much to talk about."

The helicopter settled down outside the airfield to a sea of cameras, being held at by by a wall of military, police, secret service, and national guardsmen three men deep. And they still were struggling to hold their ground. The inner grounds itself had at least fifty men inside it of various uniformed servicemen.

"Well," Harker said, gazing out the porthole. "This could get ugly. Alex will break us a path through if he has to, but I want to wave my hand out first, just so nobody gets overly trigger happy. If they do, it could be a disaster."

The ambassador nodded. "Is this type of chaos the norm on this world?"

"Not terribly unusual, no," Harker responded, trying on a smile.

"A few shots into the crowd would not go amiss to settle them down." At the President's stunned face, he added quickly: "with your guns set to stun, of course."

"Right," President Harker decided not to bring up that bullets typically did more than stun. "If you would, one moment," he said, standing up and waving his hand in the porthole. A marine in a combat uniform opened the door, and the President stood up and removed his headset. No shots or danger presented itself. "Should we come out?" he yelled over the helicopter's whining rotors. The marine paused, then nodded tersely, waving his arm in a display for the President to make his way towards the newly erected National Department of Space Research in D.C.,

"Just wave," President Harker shouted back inside the cabin. The ambassador did so from his seat, displaying his familiarity with the motion. "Good, yes, like that, alright let's go!"

The two waved hands and made their way down the carpet.


End file.
